So, on a digital wing and a virtual prayer, I delivered by talk to Australia last night – we'll have more news from the Lawtech event later but in the meantime, here are the results of their 5th annual awards...
The Lawtech Award for Innovation (Incorporating Inhouse projects ) - NORTON ROSE The Lawtech Award for Knowledge Management - SPARKE HELMORE The Lawtech Award for Security & Risk Management - CORRS CHAMBERS WESTGARTH The Lawtech Award for Legal IT Team of the Year (Small to Medium Firm) - HERBERT GEER The Lawtech Award for Legal IT Team of the Year (Large Firm) - ALLENS ARTHUR ROBINSON
Although there are currently rumours flying around about LexisNexis UK's software business, they all seem to have been sparked off by one senior manager's decision to leave the company for ill health in the family reasons. Bryan Roberts, who headed-up mid-market sales for the LexisNexis Enterprise Solutions Business, is leaving the company – although he will be continuing to work with Lexis for the next couple of months until his official departure. And that's it – we wish him and his family good luck for the future. Prior to joining LexisNexis, Bryan Roberts was with Aderant.
The September issue of the American Legal Technology Insider newsletter is out now. Top stories include new research that 78% of lawyers charge different clients different rates for the same work.
Click on the link below to download your free
copy as a PDF. To have a copy sent direct to you in-box just send your
email address to altisubs@legaltechnology.com
Alternatively, if you like Flash page-turning software, read it here...
The AIM-listed Tikit Group plc has just published its interim results for the six months to 30th June. We've attached a PDF of the full results for readers to chew over and we publish the highlights and our comments below...
2010
2009
Increase %
Revenues
£13.22m
£13.06m
1
Profit before tax, amortisation of acquired
intangibles and share-based charges
£1.65m
£1.16m
43
Profit before tax
£1.38m
£0.93m
49
Earnings per share before amortisation of acquired
intangibles and share based charges
8.4p
5.8p
45
Basic earnings per share
7.0p
4.6p
52
Dividend per share
2.0p
1.9p
5
Cash generation from operations
£2.27m
£1.75m
30
Net cash at period end
£2.09m
£0.73m
187
Sector analysis
Unaudited
Unaudited
Audited
six months to
six months to
full year to
30 June
30 June
31 December
2010
2009
2009
£’000
£’000
£’000
Managed Services
6,967
6,588
13,737
Software
3,035
2,848
4,983
Consultancy
2,464
2,926
5,439
Hardware
758
701
1,037
Total
13,224
13,063
25,196
In his chairman's statement, Mike McGoun says "I am pleased to report that the Group’s performance during the six months to 30 June 2010 has been in line with expectations, ahead of the prior year and has remained cash generative. During the tough economic environment of the past two years, we have taken the opportunity to analyse our business strengths and to cut back or eliminate non-strategic business operations. We have invested our resources to achieve better service levels and efficiencies in our core operations and also continued our investment in the development of software and outsourcing services that will drive the future profitability of the Group. Tikit has emerged from this period in a stronger position. "Revenues increased slightly, and as anticipated, the saving and efficiency measures we implemented over the course of last year helped to increase overall profitability. During the period we have added significantly to our client base, continued to focus on winning and retaining recurring, managed service and support revenues and this, combined with higher margin business derived from Tikit-owned software sales, will drive the Group’s future growth.
"Total software sales increased by 7% to £3.04 million (H1 2009: £2.85 million) and, importantly within this, sales of our own software increased by 26% over the corresponding period in 2009. Total software sales account for 23% of our total revenues.
"Consultancy revenues for the first half of this year were £2.46 million (H1 2009: £2.93 million), a reduction of 16% on the corresponding period, but broadly in line with the run rate achieved in the second half of 2009. The reduction was due in part to the cutbacks made in non-core consulting activities. "An important new element of our growth strategy is the development of the Tikit Legal Office (“TLO”) which we are planning to launch in the last quarter of 2010. This is an outsourced package solution aimed at providing small and medium sized law firms with a complete solution for their practice, including accounting, document management, CRM and time recording. By using TLO, law firms will benefit not only from a reduced capital cost, but also enhanced mobility and reliability. Tikit owns most of the core software that makes up the TLO which will be a subscription based hosted solution. TLO is an important development for Tikit as we predict many law firms, under pressure to increase efficiencies and profit margins, will look to outsource much of their IT function. Tikit is uniquely placed to benefit from this development given its place at the heart of the professional services IT industry."
Comment: We'll gloss over the two elephants in the room, namely the longer-term prospects for the special relationships with Autonomy over the iManage DMS business and LexisNexis Interaction CRM business. We've heard from people in both groups that Tikit is no longer the chosen one (as it was in the pre-acquisition days of Interface Software and Interwoven) but just one of a growing number of vertical market partners. Instead, let's look at the bigger picture.
One of Tikit's problems has always been defining what it actually does for a living. In the early days it was a wheeling-dealing outfit in white-socks that did a bit of this and did a bit of that. Then it moved into software reselling & implementation partnerships in a big way – and for a time was the main channel for many innovative new US products coming into the UK (Carpe Diem and Interaction being two of the best known examples). Then it was going to be big in knowledge management and consultancy and give the likes of Baker Robbins and Deloittes a run for their money.
And now, with its consultancy business stalled, it appears to be morphing into a software and managed services business – with its TFB and NIS operating arms bringing home more and more of the bacon. And, also significantly moving away from its traditional top 100 market into the mid and smaller firms sector. A move that looks likely to accelerate if the Tikit Legal Office/TLO launch goes as well as hoped. Interesting times.
In what he hopes will not be a triumph of wishful thinking over technology experience, later this week Orange Rag editor Charles Christian will be delivering a keynote presentation at Chilli IQ's 5th Annual Lawtech Summit & Awards in Queensland, Australia.
His session is on Future-Tech – analysing possible future technologies and the role that IT, including disruptive technologies, will play in the legal workplace of the future. That's the good news and the session starts at 9:15 Queensland time on Friday 10th September. The bad news is the session will take place via a videoconference link, kicking off just after midnight UK time, and will involve a Skype session running across a satellite broadband link. Now he's off to tighten up the twine linking his cocoa tin to the BT phone network. No, sorry, that is the BT infrastructure in Norfolk.
